From a CANVAS Facebook post

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[Kids Creative Lab at Yahoo! Headquarters in Roppongi]

On Sunday, March 15, we held our “Research Institute in Roppongi” event!
For the preschool class, the program was “Shapes Made with Straws,” and for the elementary school class, it was “Towers Made with Straws.”

In the preschool class, we started by making triangles and then transforming them into slightly different triangles.
At first, some children
struggled with the question, “How can I make a triangle with three straws?” But without giving up, they kept thinking it through and
moving their hands until they were able to “make” it.
Once they’d figured it out, they began inventing
all sorts of “shapes” on their own, without any prompting from us. Some created
while chatting with classmates in their group, others worked alongside older kids in their group, and still others worked quietly and intently on their own… It really made me realize just how many different ways there are to “create.”

In the elementary school class, many children carefully considered the structure of their towers before building them, resulting in many stable, well-balanced towers even as they grew taller. Some built towers large enough for a person to stand
inside, others modeled after the Tokyo Tower, some that extended upward, and others that focused on the beauty of the straw connections… Each child
quietly worked on their tower, having decided for themselves, “I’ll do it this way.”Some towers grew in height so
rapidly that it took us by surprise.
They were built with careful consideration given to the structure of the base.

This time, even without me having to explain much, the children noticed so many things on their own and kept moving forward.
I felt like the atmosphere was filled with such joy during our crafting time, and it made me incredibly happy.